The Quiet Type
Recently, I got to hear from one of the most prolific developers to have shaped the city of Philadelphia.
You're probably picturing an archetype that we know well. Someone who is tall, brash, and boisterous. Real estate development doesn't tend to lend itself to those who won't advocate for themselves. If you aren't able to stand up to political interests, less than joyful members of the community, or any number of partners whose interests may not neatly align with yours, then how is your project going to do anything other than collapse? If they wanna play hardball, you'll give it to em.
You've probably never heard of this guy. But no doubt you're familiar with his work. How could you not be?
He was relatively soft spoken. Sometimes, you had to crane to hear exactly what he had to say. AND you wanted desperately to. He was concise and he was generous with his time. More than anything, he had the ability to break problems down, give them to the right people, and reassemble it all back into a package with a neat little bow.
He saw the shift coming from suburban office to industrial and built one of the biggest REITs in the country, then went on to sell it for $13 billion dollars right before the pandemic. He built the Comcast Center, the Comcast Technology Center, and a long list of other things. Before any of that, he helped negotiate the deals behind the Convention Center, the Wells Fargo Center, Citizens Bank Park, Lincoln Financial Field, and the transformation of the Navy Yard from a shuttered military base into a thriving business campus.
He was the CEO of Liberty Property Trust, Bill Hankowsky.
We have a mental model for what a great developer looks like. It's the force of nature. The closer. But none of those projects happened because someone had the loudest voice in the room. They happened because someone figured out how to make a dozen different parties feel like they all won. That's not charisma. That's coordination. And the people who are best at it almost never get the profile written about them.
Next time you're walking down JFK Boulevard, look up. The guy who built those two glass towers is someone you'd never pick out of a crowd. And that might be exactly why he was able to build them.
